expeditionary_force_by_craig_alansonfandomcom-20200214-history
ExForce 7: Renegades
Author's Summary The battle-scarred star carrier Flying Dutchman is finally on her way back to Earth, after an exceptionally successful series of missions that have once again saved the world. The ship needs a serious refit, and her exhausted crew just wants a break from constant clandestine warfare against a vicious and superior enemy. Wishes come true, right? Not for the Merry Band of Pirates. SPOILERS Plot SPOILERS After a long journey on the Dutchman that included, getting the projectors up on Paradise, starting a Kristang civil war, exploring the mysterious solar system known as Roach Motel with a planet called Gingerbread, the MBoP crew under Joe Bishop arrive back in Sol System safely, having saved the Earth multiple times. The biggest/worst news they bring is the eventual arrival of a Maxolhxs ships exploring the mysteries around Sol system and why the Elder Gate shut down abruptly. Joe Bishop and rest of crew receive descent homecoming, but return to a similar cycle of interrogations that followed his first two times coming back to Sol System. Joe after pleading with everyone that the Dutchman needed to head out to thwart the incoming Maxolhxs ships, eventually gets released back into the public and heads home, where he is under constant surveillance/protection of the US Army. One day Joe manages drop his protection service in the morning. He escapes out the back of his house, heads down a path that eventually leads to a road with a car parked on the side, he takes the car to a near by lake, where he begins to fish on the lake, eating muffins he made, in the rain, when an attempt to take over the Dutchman begins. While the Dutchman was in orbit, doing some refitting, after the long voyage, a couple of Merry Band of Pirates crew are kept aboard to keep watch over the people who are new to the ship. Sarah Pool and Tammy Simms are the resident Pirates. While Skippy is watching over everything he manages to miss a special operation being run that completely silent to himself. The operation, which a run by multiple countries, aims too take over the Dutchman and destroy Skippy. After managing to get a group of soldiers onto The Dutchman, the operation first find Simms in the CIC, and begins to handout out orders. They eject Skippy's escape pod and destroy the pod with a maser cannon. Everything seems to be going well for the operation when they run into Sarah Pool in full battle armor. The soldiers have no choice but to surrender to Pool who has an overwhelming advantage in and experience with Kristang Battle Armor. We find out Hans Chotek was able to message Skippy while being interrogated that someone was up to something. Skippy was able to have Sarah Pool move himself and replace himself in the escape pod with a decoy Skippy Beer Can. Soon word goes out to Joe who is peacefully eating his muffins, in a boat on a lake, in the rain. Joe goes to the closest shore and is soon picked up by a dropship. Unfortunately the operation was mostly a success and Joe/Skippy were only able to rescue a couple more Pirates like Smythe. Everyone knows the goal is to leave Sol System and stop the Maxolhxs ships. The MBoP manage take on what crew they can, even taking on some of the mutineers, they soon leave the system. The problem is Joe/Skippy have no idea how to stop the Maxolhxs Ships. They formulate a plan, first they need find abandoned Maxolhxs ship and then find special communication devices the Maxolhxs use called Pixies. If they get both the ship and Pixies, Joe and Skippy should be able to query a Maxolhx relay station about the where abouts of the two Maxolhxs ships headed for Earth. The Dutchman heads to a moon that has a Bosphuraq moon base with an accompanying research base on the surface of the near by planet. What Bosphuraq don't know is the Maxolhxs have a hidden base, deep underground on the moon. The MBoP need to first infiltrate the Bosphuraq moon base then gain access to the Maxolhxs base. Along the way the MBoP run into a few problems, which were mainly Skippy's fault, like going through a river of very fine moon dust which causes delays. The MBoP over come the odds (1% chance of survival) with the help of Skippy and take over the base. The next thing they do is drop Joes old friend, Mr. Nukey, on the moon eventually giving he MBoP access the secret Maxolhxs base. Joe is able to find a Maxolhxs dropship, nicknamed a panther, while also scavenging some spare parts. The MBoP leave the system with the old Maxolhxs ship docked to the Dutchman. Next the MBoP head to a highly secured Maxolhxs system know as Detroit where Pixies are made in a factory. After much debate about how impossible the whole concept of stealing Pixies would be, Joe has a monkey brained idea after watching a movie where a dragon teleported into a cave. Joe's idea is to sneak a portable stealth field under the Pixie Factory into a cave and then jump a ship into the cave under the factory allowing the MBoP access to the Pixies. Skippy was successfully in duping system into believing the perfectly good Pixies were incompatible, Skippy then sends the perfectly good yet thrown out Pixies to Joe/Smythe. After completing the mission objective the dropship they are flying, needs to jump out of the cave, which means they have to go between two wormholes Skippy is managing. The Dutchman jumps out safely but the ship with Joe and Smythe is not showing up on sensors. About 50 minutes go by, everyone by this point is accepting Joe/Smythe are gone. All of sudden the ship containing Joe and Smythe appear on sensor. Joe/Smythe jumped but experienced no time delay as result of the jump and managed to time jump 50 minutes into the future. Once Joe/Symthe return the MBoP have the required tools needed to query the Maxolhxs relay station about ships heading towards Earth. After arriving at the Maxolhxs relay station and successfully connecting to the network, The MBoP receive the news that Maxolhxs ships are still in transit to Earth. The MBoP learn they have some time to make some quick repairs, Skippy steers them toward a remote system. While the system is uninhabited, Skippy finds a stash of Elder tech which the MBoP gladly pickup. During this operation Joe is nearly killed when a mad elder AI explodes near them, Skippy manages to deflect the energy in another realm of existence saving Joe. Finally the MBoP sets up camps near a rotating Elder Worm hole the Maxolhxs ship should come through. After some time spent camping at the gate, the MBoP surprise the Maxolhxs ships with dampening fields through wormholes that Skippy is controlling. The first ship attempts to jump away and blows up after the warp coils engaged over dampening field. The second ship manages survive but is damaged. The MBoP only have a couple of minutes until the Maxolhxs ship is fully recovered. The MBoP send out all the missiles they have but were easily deterred by the Maxolhxs defense. Out of no where Skippy has a Monkey Brained idea and is able to use the maser cannon to vibrate the Maxolhxs ship into destruction, which is successful. The MBoP, successful, return the Sol System/Earth, again having saved the Earth. Category:Books